Slowly, Then all at Once
by weasled
Summary: Claire enters his life slowly, then all at once. At first he was in doubt that he was in love with Stacy. Now he is sure he is not. And it makes him feel sick. He's not in love with Claire, but he could fall in love with her. {Fem!Craig/Male!Wendy} {Rated to be safe}


**A/N**: here is another genderbent thing. I reallly love this pairing ah. So I wrote this. Yes, the title is from tfios. I didn't rly enjoy it, but I liked that quote and some others. And despite the fact that yes, the warning says "cheating" it's probably not writte as horrible as it sounds. Or atleast I hope not, this is my first time writing wendy...so bare with me. I'm a little embarassed posting this on ffn tbh.

**Pairings**: Wendell/Claire, Wendell/Stacy

**Warnings**: undetailed sex, cheating, cheesiness

Wendell loves his girlfriend. We'll start off by saying this, because it is not exactly like he had the intentions of doing what he did to her. He always prided himself on being loyal and brutally honest. Wendell thinks Stacy is beautiful, he thinks she is dorky and sweet. Even if her anxiety and jealousy was a bit overbearing. He didn't like being barfed on...it was kind of gross. But he loved her, with all of her faults.

But after awhile he realizes thay maybe he isn't in love with her. It isn't a concrete fact in his mind. Just a fleeting thought as she smiles up at him.

He doesn't start to accept it until Claire Tucker enters his life.

She enters slowly, by analysis. Wendell is very observant and Claire sits right next to him in chemistry. He's caring by nature, worried more about other people than himself. So of course he begins to notice that Claire is...off. She's a weird girl. Rough and tough, quiet, apathetic, always in trouble. Sometimes she gets pulled into the other girls antics because she seems to get a kick out of it. Other times she has a fuck all attitude and wants things to be plain. Wendell does not think ill off her, but he doesn't particularly find her to be amusing and won't feed her bad attitude with attention. He doesn't think she cares, though.

At first there does not appear to be anything wrong. It is the start of junior year, Claire takes her spot next to Wendell, knowing that is where they are always assigned because they're the only people with t's to start their last name in the honors classes besides Hyde Turner, who wasn't in their chemistry class and Sully Turner, who intended to graduate early and was taking the seniors classes. Claire is silent, she doesn't say anything to Wendell when he says hi. This is not drastically different from any other day, and Wendell writes it off as normal behavior for Claore.

They sit in their silence and watch as their teacher introduces the class. For the first week they don't say anything to each other and Wendell accepts this as normal.

It's the beginning of the second week in when he notices something off.

They are taking a test, some kind of exam they endure at the beginning of the year to see how much their knowledge on the subject improves by the end. Wendell finishes before everyone else, neatly putting his pencil to the side.

Everyone else is working, their pencils tapping, filling in bubbles, writing down answers. Wendell silently people watches, finding it rude to lay his head on the table.

He glances over to Claire, with the intention to only briefly see what she is doing. However, when he looks, he notices her stare is ahead, not on her paper. She seems to be...gone. in her own world. Her name isn't even on the paper, from what he sees.

That's not exactly weird, Claire zones out a lot. But she usually tries to put some effort into the tests, even if it is minimal. Surprisingly, she is not as dumb as her quiet, spacey, trouble making demeanour might suggest. Or at least she doesn't get bad grades. She is in honors chemistry, after all.

Wendell hates to see failure, so he glances to the front of the room to see if their teacher is actually paying attention to his class. Fortunately, he is looking through some papers. So he makes his move, laying a hand on the tall girls shoulder.

He does it lightly, gently. He doesn't know how Claire will react to him touching her, he knows he shouldn't. He's read all about how victims of assault or abuse most likely don't like their personal space invaded. And he doesn't not know where Claire's been...but he can't think of another way of getting her attention without making any noise.

He feels her tense under his touch. She turns her head towards him, blank stare, a look of confusion.

Wendell takes his hand off her and motions to the paper in front of the dark haired girl. She blinks before realizing what Wendell was trying to say.

"Oh..." she says to herself, looking down at her paper. She squirms a bit in her chair, before picking up her pencil, dropping it, and picking it up again.

It's awkward, even for Claire. Wendell takes note of this.

After that day, his eyes tend to follow Claire's movements. As stated, he naturally cared about...everyone. Even people he may not like. And something just seemed...weird about Claire. She usually had her chin raised, nose stuck in the air. She was always sloppy with messy braids, baggy sweaters and sweats. But as of late it's been worse. She was zoned out more, she didn't seem to get into as much trouble, not bothering to flip people off anymore. Just giving silent "oh's" in response to everything. No one seemed to notice or care. Eventually Wendell asks Stacy about it.

"Have you noticed something...off about Claire?"

"Off?" Stacy questions as she runs a brush through her tangled hair. Wendell watches her as he sits on her bed.

"Yeah...she seems really...I don't know. Strange, lately. Stranger than usual."

Stacy rolls her eyes, placing her brush down. She grabs her hat and tugs it onto her head.

"She's as bitchy as usual. Maybe her hamster...gerbil. whatever. Died. Who cares dude? It's Claire. Complete asshole."

Stacy plops down next to Wendell, sliding open her phone to check her texts. Wendell shrugs.

"I don't know. Maybe you're right."

Wendell knew Stacy thought Claire was an "asshole" after some event in fourth grade...some kind of incident with a flute band and peru. So he knew asking her was stupid, it would probably have been smarter to ask Kyle. But the two of them were best friends, and that wouldn't look good.

He pulls her into a hug, kissing her cheek. Somehow doubt still seems to run into his mind...

He doesn't drop it though. He watches and watches as Claire becomes more and more strange. Eventually, one day in gym he purposely forgets his uniform and makes his way to the bleachers after a disappointed sigh and lecture from the coach. Claire sits out for gym a lot. Wendell thinks she already has the credit or something. Who knows. But he takes a seat right next to her as she stares ahead.

"Claire" he says, trying to catch her attention. She continues staring ahead, eyes focused on something or nothing. She doesn't say anything, she's in that little world again.

"Claire, come on." Wendell says, louder as he waves a hand in front of Claire's face. Fortunately, she blinks a few times, coming back. Claire turns her head in his direction, dark eyes focused on him.

"Huh?" She questions in her nasally voice.

Wendell bites at his lower lip, trying to think of the right words to say. Claire just watches him, bored.

"Well. Claire, to be honest...I'm worried about you." He states, simple and to the point. Claire raises an eyebrow, folding her arms as she raises her chin just a little bit higher than the downcast face she has been displaying the past few weeks. It the first time Wendell has seen this in awhile.

"Worried." She states as if it were something foreign on her tongue, as if she were testing the word out.

She remains silent, waiting for the dark haired male to elaborate.

"Yes," he starts. He clears his throat.

"It's just. You're quiet, more than usual. You're not taking care of yourself, or atleast less than you used to. You are always just...gone, Claire. Like your mind took you somewhere else and you've left the building." He finishes. His eyes search Claire's face for any sign of emotion, and he sees it, her chin is raised and she tries to look bored but she tenses, her hands are shaking.

"I...I am fine." She says. She grabs her backpack, pushing her hands through the straps.

"I got to go." Is all she says as she begins to walk down the bleachers. Wendell watches hopelessly as she walks away. He stands himself, trying to call out to her.

"Wait! Claire!" But she doesn't turn around, just continues walking, a bit faster now that Wendell has tried to call her back.

Wendell decides to leave it alone after that. It's obvious Claire doesn't want help. Or at least help from him. He keeps an eye on her, sometimes notices that she stares at him with a blank look. But he won't approach her.

He entered her life slowly, and remains there at this pause. This stuck spot that keeps repeating itself. Everyday they sit next to each other and steal glances. But Claire refuses to say anything, and Wendell won't help her unless she comes to him.

And she does.

Suddenly, she's entering his life, fully, all at once,

It is quiet in the Testaburger house. Wendell's parents are out on a date that night and he is all alone. He is reading up on some conspiracy theories that he heard that girl, Tweek rant on about so he would be informed. He doesn't expect company, so he jumps when he hears a knocking on his front door.

"Jesus." He says, as he stands. He makes his way to the door, pulling it open, he expects Stacy, or maybe Be. What he doesn't expect is Claire, hair down instead of it's braid, slightly wavy, a little messy. Shirt wrinkled, baggy and pants a little toobig. Her eyes are watery, her nose and cheeks red as if she has been crying. Wendell steps aside, wordlessly letting her in.

He leads her to his room and she silently takes a seat on his bed. She looks down, quivering as folds her arms. Wendell sits at his computer chair and takes it all in.

"What happened?" He asks bluntly. Claire closes her eyes and when she opens them, tears begin to roll down her cheeks.

"It's stupid." She states, she shakes her head, no.

"It's so fucking stupid. I'm stupid." She inhales shakily, Claire wipes angrily at her face. Upsrt that she wss being so emotional. No one is supposed to see her this way.

"It's obviously not stupid if it is upsetting you." Wendell says as he stands to sit next to her, he hesitates at first, but gently takes her hand in his. He hopes he is not over stepping into her boundaries, but she doesn't flinch, she actually grips onto his hand.

"I met a guy over the summer...from...from North Park." She starts, inhaling. She looks up now, rasiing her chin.

"I wasn't supposed to fall in love, I never do. Love is stupid. For the weak." She remains quiet for about a minute. Closing her eyes.

"But I did. And he broke my heart. We fucked a couple of times and one night he messaged me on facebook and told me that is all he wanted and then blocked mey facebook, skype and cell phone number. So I have no contact with him. I couldn't even tell him to go fuck himself. I was so weak. I am so weak. I want to be strong." She begins to cry again, silently as she looks ahead at Wendell's posters.

Wendell rubs circles into her palm. Quiet, at a loss for words. Claire has just broke in front of him. One of the most coldest people he has ever met is reduced to tears because of love.

"I'm sorry." He starts. He takes both his hands and hold her one, slender one.

"You deserve better. I apologize on behalf of this...man. Not all of us are like that, Claire. I promise, you may be afraid of love, because you have seen the dark side of it. But there is a light one, and it is beautiful."

She wipes at her face and remains quiet, looking at him. Wendell continues rubbing circles into her hand and before he knows how it happened, Claire has leaned in and is pressing a kiss to his lips. At first Wendell doesn't react, but feels a twist in his heart, a flutter in his stomach. He kisses her back. His hands reach up to cup her face and he presses soft kisses to her cheeks, going down to her neck and her jawline.

She crawls into his lap and pulls her shirt off, throwing it to the ground. She begins to slide off her sweat pants as Wendell kisses her bare shoulders, running his hands down her sides. He pulls away briefly as he unzips his pants. Claire throws her underwear to the ground and he does too Before they know it, they are asleep in eachothers arms, naked, covers shielding them from the world. Claire has her head rested on Wendell's chest and Wendell has his arms securely around her.

Wendell wakes first, running his hands through Claire's long hair.

It isn't until he realizes that this is not Stacy's long black hair that he is running his fingers through does he feel the guilt. Quickly, he gets up. He begins feelings around for his pants, his shirt, his underwear. Claire wakes to this and watches with tired eyes.

Wendell knows how this will look. Like he used her. He didn't. A broken heart can't be mended with a few kisses and a night of pleasure. Wendell knows this, and prays he doesn't contribute to her breaking.

Claire enters his life slowly, then all at once. At first he was in doubt that he was in love with Stacy. Now he is sure he is not. And it makes him feel sick. He's not in love with Claire, but he could fall in love with her.

It is funny, because while he was just trying to mend someones broken heart, he might have shattered someone else's.

And it makes him feel like shit.

Claire gets dressed, leaves without a word.

When she is gone Wendell looks at the folder of him and Stacy that he has on his laptop, he doesn't want to break Stacy's heart. He's seen the coldest of people reduce to nothing because of love. What would it do to Stacy?

Wendell x's out of the folder, closes his laptop and goes back to sleep


End file.
